SPLEEN is the personal blog of Stephen Judd

My centenarian grandpa, and other notes

On Thursday afternoon I set off for Auckland to attend my grandpa's 100th birthday celebration. He was born in 1909, which means he predates not just computers, integrated circuits, and transistors, but commercial use of vacuum tubes.

The whole thing was a potential logistical disaster: I had organised for Hannah to fly over from Melbourne and be picked up by her mother's family, and for us then to meet my Dad driving up from Hamilton, who in turn had arranged to meet my late mother's cousin and her husband visiting from the UK, before we all drove to the retirement village in Albany together.

I took the airport flyer from Willis St. I hate, hate, hate the kind of decision that I was forced to make. If I took the 4:36 bus, it would arrive at 5:17, miles too early; but if I too the 4:56, it might arrive at 5:37, but given Wellington's micro-rush hour, it very well might not, leaving me too late to check in for a 6:15 flight. I took the earlier bus, and it arrived early. So I cooled my heels for ages in Wellington airport. Downside: Wellington ton airport these days is cramped, a bit tatty, and all the food looks a bit yick and costs too much. Upside: it has free wifi. (Is that "Wild at heart"? Because frankly I don't associate wireless internet with an elemental, wilderness experience).

I learned something useful if you travel Pacific Blue to Auckland: they have a crummy part of the terminal with no airbridges, but this means they let you disembark from the rear as well as the front. Since I was in the last row, I was off the plane straight away. So choose row 30, friends, for a speedy exit.

My exit was so speedy that my poor shuttle driver was discombobulated as I beat him to our rendezvous. We listened to Radio Live with Karen Hay and Andrew Fagan. There was no holocaust denial, but an extended discussion of the minutiæ of English pronunciation, spurred by the observation that our prime minister could do with a bit of NZBC elocution training ("preformance"). A delightful Indian woman called Vidia rang to share her struggle with the word "rendezvous" (that word's a leitmotif for the weekend) but was unable to grasp why "pronounciation" is not how you say "pronunciation". English is a bastard in more ways than one. In a small miracle the shuttle driver and I managed to agree on politics and he told me that while the recession isn't hurting business much, fear of flu is.

I got to Julian and Maria's place in Beach Haven in time for a very delicious dinner and a night on a foldout sofa. Their small but well-laid out house made my nesting instinct intensify.

In the morning Maria dropped me off at St Lukes, en route to taking the boys to the zoo. I pottered for a little bit. I never normally go to these kinds of shopping malls in Wellington -- there aren't any in the central city, and I sure as hell wouldn't make the trip out to one. They're so monotone and relentless. There is no respite.

Got a taxi to Janis and Paul's place in Three Kings (Hannah's aunt and uncle, my former in-laws) and we waited for Dad to turn up from Hamilton. He got lost, an embarassing lapse for an ex-Aucklander.

We made our appointment with Sandra and Neville in the nick of time. Sandra's my late mother's cousin, a retired Sheffield teacher; Neville was a prominent UK psychiatrist but is most memorable to me for his quip that the definition of "father" is "man who eats children's leftovers." They are a delightful couple and I was reminded again of the penalties of belonging to a migratory family -- there are all these people you are related to whom you might like to know better but rarely have the opportunity to meet. It was very nice, somehow, to have approving remarks about Hannah from Sandra; a sort of substitute for praise from Mum.

After a walk around the Auckland waterfront and lunch we packed into Dad's car -- my Dad the 70 year old boy racer drives a Skyline coupe -- and trundled off to Albany. We were early, so we caught Grandpa standing almost alone in the common area of the village admin building, waiting for things to kick off.

There were cards from well-wishers related, friendly, and official. I saw one from the Queen, two from John Key (why two?) and cards from the governor-general, the local MP, and the Minister of Internal Affairs. We observed that signing Grandpa's card might be Richard Worth's last act with his ministerial warrant, and that the card might be auctioned on Trademe to aficionados of such things.

The do itself was very nice, and went off well. Grandpa is the first centenarian ever in the village. There have been others who neared that milestone, but they either popped off too early or ended up needing more care in specialised homes. There is another resident whom I talked to who'll be 100 in September. She told me, among other things, that she would like to shake the hand of the chap who invented the walker, if it was a chap, which it probably was, wasn't it? Anyway, they're MARVELLOUS.

I was talking to Hannah about the Queen when Hannah said she'd just been talking to a lady who had dined with the Queen twice. We were introduced to the lady in question and her husband and it emerged we were talking with the Gairs. George lives up to his reputation for bonhomie, and I had the pleasure of watching Hannah's jaw drop as Dad introduced himself and it was established that George Gair's father was Dad's old school principal.

My cousin's husband and I were yakking at the edge of the bar as the old people filed out for dinner. One old fellow was bent over his walker and suddenly turned a beady eye on us. "Don't get old, like me. Stay young and beautiful." And he winked and shuffled off.

Eventually things wound up, I handed Hannah over to her grandmother for safekeeping, and Dad and I headed back to Hamilton. We had a late Thai dinner, which ended with Dad discussing lemongrass with the chef. Dad explained that he has a huge plant he doesn't know what to do with, as well as a fine selection of hot chillis. "You bring me lemongrass, I give you free food", said the chef. So I hope that's what happened today.

On Saturday I spent the day with my recently divorced pal Andrew, who is expressing his middle-aged self with an old XJS Jag and a new Chevrolet V8 engine, before flying home, laden with produce from Dad's garden, including avocados picked by leaning out the living room window, limes, and Scotch bonnet chillis. Scotch bonnets are so hot that on the Scoville scale, they rank immediately below US Police pepper spray, and I can attest to this. I used one in a chilli this afternoon, and it made a kilo of meat and sauce pretty damned hot. It certainly makes you very, very careful to wash your hands well before you go to the loo. Dad is a gardener of food par excellence, which is why I emailed him today thus:

Hi Dad

I popped into Moore Wilson Fresh today, and noted some prices for you.

- Lemongrass (sad, skinny looking) was $32.50 per kg. So maybe our Thai friend was quoting a per bunch price.

- NZ limes were $8.50 per kg (but I've seen imported ones as high as $20).

- Chillis ranged from $30 (ancho, jalapeño) to $65 per kg (habañero). They didn't seem to have any Scotch bonnets but there were several different sorts.

Right now I have a pseudo Mexican beef dish on the go. I browned cubed brisket chunks and have made a spice base of cumin, cinnamon, pepper and smoked paprika, and a sofrito of onion, celery, carrot and one of your red peppers, to which I have added a tin of tomatoes, and the juice of a lime plus a little lime rind. I also put in one Scotch bonnet chilli. I tried a little slice of Scotch bonnet and crikey that was very hot indeed -- it's half an hour later and my mouth and lips are still tingling. Anyway it smells great and very Latin American. I tell myself real peasants use what they have lying around and therein lies true authenticity.

The lemongrass incident.
The next day I cut a big bundle of beautiful stems for the restaurant. They were three times as thick as the wilted skinny pieces we were shown the day before and had a strong lemongrass aroma when snapped. The restaurant owner who you referred to as the chef took them into the kitchen for the chef's approval but they were rejected as not looking right. I explained they were the biggest and best from the bush, the plant was at the end of its season and was getting ready to put out flowere heads, hence the exceptional size and other excuses for my product. No matter, they didn't look right and the chef would not budge. The owner's apology was "he's not educated and he thinks there is only one lemongrass in the world just like new Zealanders think there is only one rice." Next I handed over some fine examples of scotch bonnets and some nice yellow hot chilli peppers. The response was 'the yellow ones are ok but Thais don't use scotch bonnets - too hot"-which left me a bit shaken for the second time. Also ,she said, lemongrass doesn't have seeds. I remembered seeing seed heads last year but I had to retreat on that one too.
I googled lemongrass and discovered lemongrass everywhere looks exactly like mine, it's cultivated by the thousand hectares in India and Malaysia, there are about 50 varieties but just a few are grown commercially and Kings seeds in Tauranga sells 1000 seeds for about $4. Their variety comes from the West Indies and Kings is probably where mine came from.
So my hopes of being the supplier to the Thai restaurant trade lie in ashes. My favourite fruit and vegetable supplier has pathetic little pencil bundles of lemongrass for $8 each which makes my single bush worth at lest $1000. All grassed up and nowhere to go. DAD